In addition, a gluten-free diet may, in at least some cases, improve gastrointestinal or systemic symptoms in diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, gluten free biscuits arthritis, or HIV enteropathy, among others. Gluten proteins have low nutritional and biological value and the grains that contain gluten are not essential in the human diet. However, an unbalanced selection of food and an incorrect choice of gluten-free replacement products may lead to nutritional deficiencies.
A gluten-free diet may be based on gluten-free foods, such as meat, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products, legumes, nuts, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, rice, and corn. Gluten-free processed foods may be used. One breadcrumb of this size contains enough gluten to reactivate the autoimmune response in people with coeliac disease when they are following a gluten-free diet, although obvious symptoms may not appear. Coeliac disease with “classic symptoms”, which include gastrointestinal manifestations such as chronic diarrhea and abdominal distention, malabsorption, loss of appetite, and impaired growth, is currently the least common presentation form of the disease and affects predominantly to small children generally younger than two years of age.
Following a lifelong gluten-free diet is the only medically-accepted treatment for people with coeliac disease. The pathogenesis of NCGS is not yet well understood. For this reason, it is a controversial syndrome and some authors still question it. After exclusion of coeliac disease and wheat allergy, the subsequent step for diagnosis and treatment of NCGS is to start a strict gluten-free diet to assess if symptoms improve or resolve completely. This may occur within days to weeks of starting a GFD, but improvement may also be due to a non-specific, placebo response. NCGS, which is possibly immune-mediated, now appears to be more common than coeliac disease, with prevalence rates between 0. People can also experience adverse effects of wheat as result of a wheat allergy.
Gastrointestinal symptoms of wheat allergy are similar to those of coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, but there is a different interval between exposure to wheat and onset of symptoms. The management of wheat allergy consists of complete withdrawal of any food containing wheat and other gluten-containing cereals. Nevertheless, some people with wheat allergy can tolerate barley, rye or oats. A male with gluten ataxia: previous situation and evolution after 3 months of gluten-free diet. Gluten ataxia is an autoimmune disease triggered by the ingestion of gluten. Early diagnosis and treatment with a gluten-free diet can improve ataxia and prevent its progression.
The effectiveness of the treatment depends on the elapsed time from the onset of the ataxia until diagnosis, because the death of neurons in the cerebellum as a result of gluten exposure is irreversible. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the gluten-free diet has become the most popular fad diet in the United States and other countries. US and Australia were consuming gluten-free foods, with a growing number, calculated from surveys that by 2016 approximately 100 million Americans would consume gluten-free products. In a review of May 2015 published in Gastroenterology, Fasano et al. In some cases, the popularity of the gluten-free diet may harm people who must eliminate gluten for medical reasons. This could prevent appropriate precautions in food handling to prevent gluten cross-contamination.
Gluten-free commercial replacement products, such as gluten-free cakes, are more expensive than their gluten-containing counterparts, so their purchase adds a financial burden. They are also typically higher in calories, fat, and sugar, and lower in dietary fibre. In the British National Health Service, gluten-free foods have been supplied on prescription. For many patients, this meant at no cost.
When it was proposed to alter this in 2018, the Department of Health and Social Care made an assessment of the costs and benefits. Healthcare professionals recommend against undertaking a gluten-free diet as a form of self-diagnosis, because tests for coeliac disease are reliable only if the person has been consuming gluten recently. Although popularly used as an alternative treatment for people with autism, there is no good evidence that a gluten-free diet is of benefit in reducing the symptoms of autism. Nevertheless, it remains elusive whether these findings specifically implicate gluten or other proteins present in gluten-containing cereals. Quinoa is a pseudocereal that is gluten-free.